"There is war between vampires in this city."
Lydia recalled the elaborate precautions in Ysidro's London house-or one of his London houses-and it occurred to her that human incursion might not be the only threat against which he protected himself.
"You think one of the Master of Constantinople's fledglings is... rebelling against him? Trying to overthrow him? And summoned, or blackmailed, Ernchester here to help him?"
"It could be that," agreed Ysidro. "It can happen so, though as a rule a master as old as that of Constantinople will show more care in who he makes into his fledgling. Or a newcomer has arrived from the outside, in flight from his or her own master vampire, and seeks to take over mastery of Constantinople himself. This he will find no easy matter."
"Ernchester?"
He made a conceding movement with his eyebrow that three hundred years ago might have been a shrug and a gesture. "In truth I find that a morsel hard to swallow, particularly given the fact that he must have known the master of the city in life. Yet war there is. Charles plays some part in it..."
"And since Karolyi knows about it," Lydia said thoughtfully, "he's going to try to make of it what he can. Would it have been he who was behind James'... disappearance?"
"I think it likelier he engineered this incident with the palace guard."
Ysidro's white hand moved upon the windowsill. "Behold the timing of it. He was taken up in the morning, when a living man would have the most time to question him or to act in his absence. He was taken up, too, outside the Grand Bazaar, where he is known to have been speaking to the tellers of tales. So his dwelling place was unknown. Karolyi did not reckon on James' friendship with your golden barbarian, and he did not have time to get him into his own hand before he was released. I think," he added, "that this Karolyi knows something of what is taking place, but not all. And I think that if it was his goal to get James into his hand, rather than simply to kill him, it was to find Anthea through him."
"So they were still together."
"So it appears." His hand moved in the shadows again, and Lydia saw that he had wrapped a thick cashmere lap robe over his morning coat, as if to ward off the chill of the autumn night. "In two nights' wanderings I have found no sign of Anthea hunting, and Zenaida has seen nothing of a strange woman in her own quest for midnight blood. This could mean that Anthea is in hiding somewhere, or that she has been taken, either by Karolyi or by the Bey, the master of the city... or by this adversary, be he rebel fledgling or interloper. And where Charles may be..." He shook his head.
"It is an ancient city, and very great. Veiled as it is-and Zenaida says this mist or illusion settled upon it shortly after the gunfire and riots of the army coup, not that she had the smallest knowledge or interest in the Sultan's overthrow-there are an infinity of places to hide. Zenaida says that she knows not where the Bey is, nor knows she of any other vampire. She says that she does not mind, never having cared for the dominance of the Bey."
Lydia gazed in silence for a time into the night beyond the lattices, the moon- soaked city and the silver-flecked waters that lay between. At last she said, "And she knew nothing... would know nothing... of Jamie?"
Ysidro made no reply.
My master told me to show you the place, the boy had said.
"Would it help to find the hiding place of the master of the city?" He gave her a glance of inscrutable irony, as if to say, As you found mine? "He will have many, you know. In a war among vampires, he will be moving his sleeping place nightly."
"I understand," Lydia said. "But it will give us a starting place, and if we find out what we can find out, clues lead to other clues. About Anthea or Ernchester, or... or Jamie."
"Always provided Jamie is not lying with a cut throat at the bottom of the harbor."
"If I were willing to accept that without further investigation," retorted Lydia, "I might as well go back to London."
He inclined his head, though whether in mockery or apology she did not know.
"Anyway," she went on after a moment, "I obviously don't have Jamie's training in questioning storytellers, aside from not speaking any... is it Turkish they speak here?"
"Turkish and Greek in the streets. Arabic among the scholars, Osmanli at the Sultan's court."
"Since there doesn't seem to be any central depot of records, I think I'm going to have to have tea with German businessmen and ask them about native clients, and try to spot some kind of oddity in payment. My German isn't wonderful, but last night most of them seemed to speak very good French. I wonder if I can get on the good side of someone at the Banque Ottomane? Or the German Orient Bank?"
She straightened her shoulders, the words themselves giving her courage; she spoke as if sorting a hand of cards, seeing what she had and what she needed. "Extensive use of middlemen and corporations that don't seem to have any raison d'etre beyond paying the bills of one or two households; payment in gold or credit rather than silver; clients who either never appear at all or only appear after dark. That sort of thing. The purchase of housing that has some kind of multilevel cellars or that's built over old crypts, like that cistern we passed through. Maybe corporate credit funneled through the palace with instructions not to check too closely into bona fides?"
She fell silent, watching his face, which was without expression. His silence lay on her heart like plates of lead.
Then he said, "Did we but find one of his bolt-holes, it could be watched. Not a safe occupation, even with the illusion which veils this city, but as you say, clues lead to other clues, and it is clear to me that more than finding Charles, more than finding Anthea, it is necessary to learn what is happening in this city. If Karolyi is here, there is still bargaining going on."
Behind them the mantelpiece clock chimed four; seagulls cried in the darkness outside. Ysidro went on, "You have catalogued already those things I will alter in my own arrangements, when I gain London once more. Quest among your German businessmen for word of purchase of either a great quantity of silver bars or silver- plated bars. If there is war among the vampires of this city-if the master of the city seeks to summon and imprison Ernchester-he will need a place to put him. And seek also," he added, "for someone using the roundabout financial methods of which you speak to purchase and install modern central heating in one or more old houses."
"Central heating?" The absurd picture rose to her mind of the cloaked and sinister West End stage Dracula deep in conversation with Herr Hindi about soft- coal hummers and double-heating, self-feeding base-burner anthracite models, only ninety-seven marks plus shipping costs...
"If there is a challenge to the Bey's power, chances are good that it is because the Bey himself may be growing... tired. Brittle. Losing his grip. A thing one seldom considers of the Bey," added Ysidro, "but a possibility. It happens, in time, even to the Undead. When this chances, vampires suffer cold and joint ache. Winter is coming on. This city will be under snow. A master fighting for his position, refusing to admit the drag of darkness in his soul, might well heat one or more of his bolt-holes for his own comfort, particularly if it has been his custom to use the living as servants."
He had been watching the darkness of the street. Now he turned his attention fully toward her again, a ghost-shape in the gloom. "You understand," he said, "that though clues of this kind may lead us to Ernchester or to the heart of this affair with Karolyi, you may not find your husband, mistress."